The Good Thing About Bad Bosses

Never waste a good opportunity to learn from a bad boss.

Are there really bad bosses?

Yes, of course. And likely in your career you will have at least one or two of them.

But are there also things we can learn from different personality types and management styles? 

Absolutely!

One interesting pattern that emerged while I was a professor was that students on internships almost always rated their supervisors very highly, but students in part time and full time work positions often had a lot of complaints about their bosses.

I often wondered why that was?

As I spent time pondering it over the years I came to the conclusion that it probably had more to do with the students then the bosses or supervisors being evaluated and it all came down to perspective.

Walk a mile in their shoes

First things first. 

What is a bad boss, really?

Complaining about bosses is easy. But more often than not complaints center around personality differences versus true ineptness.

It is easy to look at a supervisor and think what you would do differently in their shoes or how you would handle things given their position.

But I have learned from my own experiences that often you are only seeing one side of the story and how you handle things might not be all that differently if given the opportunity. 

Sometimes the old adage is true: be careful what you wish for.

For example, when I was a student I hated exams.

They stressed me out. I would spend all this time studying (i.e., cramming) and then forget everything the moment I walked out the door.

I didn’t understand why professors didn’t just give open notes exams or more importantly why they didn’t just do away with exams all together and give us extra credit assignments or all A’s and call it good.

Then I graduated.

And I got my first grown up job.

And I found out that employers actually expected me to know things from my degree.

And not just what I liked learning like the parts of the horse, or genetics, but less interesting topics like how to evaluate different feeds, how to speak Spanish with my coworkers, and how calculate treatment dosages based on body weight.

In fact, not only did they expect me to know it, they wanted me to know it on the spot, not look it up and come back to them later with the answer. 

Surprisingly the things I had learned came back to me -more than they would have if I had never spent extra time studying them for exams or just been given an A. 

It turns out my professors knew what they were doing after all, but I didn’t know that until after I was a student.

Most students complain to me about their managers.

Let’s look at farm managers for example.

I often hear that all they do is sit in an office or in a truck on the phone while everyone else is busy mucking stalls and doing the ‘real work’.

Most people who have never been managers think that management jobs are easy. 

But nothing could be further from the truth. 

Farm managers spend their time answering to farm owners, communicating with clients, scheduling visits with veterinarians, farriers, acupuncturist, nutritionist, etc., managing budgets, ordering supplies, coordinating breeding shed runs, managing employees, and ordering feed, supplies, bedding, and equipment.  They keep daily records and write weekly reports of how horses are progressing, log pictures, follow training/competition/sales progeny, treat sick and injured horses, monitor their progression, track weight gain and loss, create invoices, and answer emails.

Above all that they are responsible for everything that happens on the farm.

If a horse gets hurt or sick, they are the one who has to tell the owners, if someone makes a mistake and feeds the wrong amount, lets a horse loose, gives the wrong medicine, or doesn’t clean a stall or groom a horse up to standard, they are the ones held responsible. 

They are the ones who take the colic horse to the clinic afterhours, who stay up all night foaling out mares, and check on the horse with a fever every few hours to make the hard decisions of when the horse is starting to improve and when it’s time to call for help.

It is easy to look at supervisors and see their job as easy or think how much better you could do it.

But until you have been on the other side…

Until you have also carried the burden of responsibility that supervisors have…

It would serve you good in your career to focus less on how you could do things better and more on what more you could be doing to help.